In a huge blow to the GOP, the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined an emergency request to halt a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision regarding the handling of provisional ballots.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) and Pennsylvania GOP sought relief from the U.S. Supreme Court after the state’s highest court ruled 4-3 that provisional ballots lacking a ‘secrecy’ envelope or containing errors would still be counted.
Lawyers for the GOP argued that there is no identifying information on the provisional ballots once they are separated from the envelopes.
Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled that “provisional votes can be counted only after a person’s eligibility to vote and the rejection of their mail-in ballot are confirmed.”
“Counting Electors’ provisional ballots, when their mail ballots are void for failing to use a Secrecy Envelope, is a statutory right,” state Supreme Court Justice Christine Donohue wrote in the majority opinion, adding that the rule in question is “intended to alleviate potential disenfranchisement for eligible voters.”
As reported by Fox News:
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a state court ruling that allowed for the counting of certain provisional ballots, in a major setback for the state GOP and Republican National Committee just four days before the election.
The Republican National Committee and the state GOP filed an emergency appeal to the nation’s top court last week seeking to temporarily halt a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that ordered the state to count voters whose provisional ballots had been incorrectly filled out or were missing an inner “secrecy” envelope.
Attorneys for the Republican Party urged the Supreme Court to grant a full stay of the state’s decision, writing in a final reply brief submitted Thursday evening that such an order would “prevent multiple forms” of “irreparable harm” to the state.
At a minimum, the court was urged to grant a “segregation order” to allow the ballots to be set aside and counted separately.
“The actual provisional ballots contain no identifying information, only a vote,” the GOP’s lawyers wrote. “Once ballots are separated from their outer envelopes, there is no way to retroactively figure out which ballots were illegally cast. In other words, once the egg is scrambled, it cannot be unscrambled.”
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